Even in the swampy, late-winter-to-early-spring transition these houses look cute.
Page 15 of 41
Marbled blue skies and new condo developments–things in Kensington always to look up to!
Cyclists are out cruising and pub-hopping on Kensington Road.
A welcome sight to Hillhurst-Sunnyside: dogs, skateboards, guitars, and short sleeves. An indication that Spring is just around the corner.
Halifax’s own ‘King of Donair‘ shows up at Meraki Supply Co. with a pop-up shop! King of Donair is here with East Coast Lifestyle clothing to raise funds for the Calgary Children’s Hospital Foundation. Hundreds of people have showed up for a taste of the Nova Scotia donair legends.
“Put it this way: you buy an eighteen hundred square foot house in this neighbourhood for around eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You tear it down and rebuild it to a three thousand or thirty-five hundred square foot house at a cost of about six hundred thousand. You take it to the maximum elevation, or the designer makes this big, square looking thing, and by the time you get to landscaping, you’re in it for a million and a half dollars.
It doesn’t make sense to me. These houses have been here for a hundred years. Generations of kids grew up in them and moved on. I think it’s way more affordable to gut them down to the frames and studs, redesign and open up the rooms, maybe put an addition on the back part to extend the kitchen…. after you’re all done and said, you can have a really efficient house for the utilities. With a couple of solar panels in these old little homes, you can live off the power grid. Imagine! You can pull the permits yourself, get a couple of really good electrical and plumbing crews, and you wouldn’t have to spend more than say, forty to fifty thousand.
And imagine this, it’s a lot easier on your neighbours if you have a house that fits with the look and feel of the community instead of one that blocks out their sun once the house hits these crazy high elevations.”
Well, it happened.
One of the houses featured in day 84 of Sunnyside365 has caught on fire. The Calgary Fire Department hasn’t stated the cause, but my guesses are the squatters who were living in the house caused it. It’s unfortunate to see that this is how the developers who buy up property treat our community.
Kudos to the Calgary Emergency crews who responded to this call, they prevented something careless as this from becoming something really terrible. Those houses are all wooden framed and abandoned. It could have been so much worse.
“The Utility Box Program started in 2010 as a pilot project initiated by The City of Calgary Roads. Initially conceived as a highly successful graffiti abatement measure, widespread popularity enabled the program to grow and become permanent in 2011. The City is now expanding the opportunity to include community partners and engage more artists and citizens. Since 2010, over 140 utility box public artworks have been created by local artists throughout Calgary.
The Utility Box Program is designed to use the funding for regular lifecycle maintenance of City assets in a creative way. Working with student artists, professional artists and community groups, the program allows for these street-level artworks to add vibrancy to our cityscape, while creating a sense of place and identity for communities. These public artworks are not intended to be permanent but a temporary canvas through which artists and community members can express themselves and their identity.”
To learn more, visit: http://www.calgary.ca/CSPS/Recreation/Pages/Public-Art/Utility-Box-Public-Art-Program.aspx
Haha! Here’s a thing: It’s a leap-year. That means Sunnyside365 is actually Sunnyside366. On my extra day, I get to shoot whatever I want.
“My background is art, but I started in Med School. Actually, it’s kind of funny. I needed something to do other than writing papers all the time, so I literally Googled ‘part-time jobs that make the most amount of money with the least amount of time.’ One of the jobs that popped up was social painting, so I did a couple of events and then decided to start a business called ‘Paint Party.’ I did about three to four events a month. I did that for a few years before I saw the space here on Kensington Road, so I decided to bring the concept into a retail space.
We’ll have raw food making education classes, paint nights (painting and drinking), board games on Sundays and Mondays… yeah! We have lots of events booked!
Ooh, the neighbourhood. That’s a good one. I love the community feel. I don’t know how to word it, but you know it’s back like the in olden days, everyone knows each other, people pop by to check up and see how everyone is doing. It’s very neighbourly. It reminds of home. It reminds me of Vancouver.” Chrisann Bodi, Principle, Raw Canvas, 200 1130 Kensington Road NW.